Quotessence
Home / Authors / Thomas Huxley
Thomas Huxley

Thomas Huxley Quotes

Biologist

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenScienceIfsMayFactsWorldBelievePeopleLyingEducationEvolutionHas BeensLittlesThinkingLifeIntellectKnowledgeNaturalAtheismHands

Famous Thomas Huxley Quotes

“It is given to few to add the store of knowledge, to strike new springs of thought, or to shape new forms of beauty. But so sure as it is that men live not by bread, but by ideas, so sure is it that the future of the world lies in the hands of those who are able to carry the interpretation of nature a step further than their predecessors.”

MenWorldIdeasHandsAbleFormScienceLyingGivenStepsKnowledgeShapesSpringAddStrikesStoresBreadInterpretationPredecessors
Book:Aphorisms and Reflections from the Works of Thomas Henry Huxley
Create image

“Next to being right in this world, the best of all things is to be clearly and definitely wrong, because you will come out somewhere. If you go buzzing about between right and wrong, vibrating and fluctuating, you come out nowhere; but if you are absolutely and thoroughly and persistently wrong, you must, some of these days, have the extreme good fortune of knocking your head against a fact, and that sets you all straight again.”

IfsWorldFactsNextThis WorldAll ThingsFortuneExtremesThese DaysGood FortuneKnocking
Book:A Scientific Education
Create image

“I can assure you that there is the greatest practical benefit in making a few failures early in life. You learn that which is of inestimable importance that there are a great many people in the world who are just as clever as you are. You learn to put your trust, by and by, in an economy and frugality of the exercise of your powers, both moral and intellectual; and you very soon find out, if you have not found it out before, that patience and tenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness.”

PeopleIfsWorldI CanPurposeFoundMoralEconomyExerciseBenefitsIntellectualWeightImportanceCleverPracticalsGreat MenTenacityClevernessFrugality
Book:Collected essays
Create image

“The whole analogy of natural operations furnishes so complete and crushing an argument against the intervention of any but what are termed secondary causes, in the production of all the phenomena of the universe; that, in view of the intimate relations between Man and the rest of the living world; and between the forces exerted by the latter and all other forces, I can see no excuse for doubting that all are co-ordinated terms of Nature's great progression, from the formless to the formed from the inorganic to the organic from blind force to conscious intellect and will.”

MenWorldI CanWholeUniverseForceCausesTermNaturalViewsDoubtConsciousArgumentRelationBlindProductionsExcuseIntellectOperationsIntimateCrushLatterInterventionProgressionAnalogiesNo Excuses
Author:Thomas Huxley
Create image

“I have endeavoured to show that no absolute structural line of demarcation, wider than that between the animals which immediately succeed us in the scale, can be drawn between the animal world and ourselves; and I may add the expression of my belief that the attempt to draw a physical distinction is equally futile, and that even the highest faculties of feeling and of intellect begin to germinate in lower forms of life.”

WorldMayShowsFeelingsFormBeliefLinesAnimalExpressionSucceedHighestDrawsAbsolutesAddIntellectScalesDistinctionFacultyAnimal World
Author:Thomas Huxley
Create image

“Cosmic evolution may teach us how the good and evil tendencies of man may have come about; but, in itself, it is incompetent to furnish any better reason why what we call good is preferable to what we call evil than we had before. Some day, I doubt not, we shall arrive at an understanding of the evolution of the aesthetic faculty; but all the understanding in the world will neither increase nor diminish the force of the intuition that this is beautiful and that is ugly.”

MenWorldMayReasonBeautifulEvilForceUnderstandingTeachDoubtEvolutionIncreaseUglyIntuitionTendenciesReason WhyGood And EvilFacultyCosmicAestheticDiminishIncompetent
Book:Collected essays
Create image

“... our "Physick" and "Anatomy" have embraced such infinite varieties of being, have laid open such new worlds in time and space, have grappled, not unsuccessfully, with such complex problems, that the eyes of Vesalius and of Harvey might be dazzled by the sight of the tree that has grown out of their grain of mustard seed.”

WorldProblemMightEyeScienceSpaceTreeSightInfiniteComplexesSeedsVarietyNew WorldGrainTime And SpaceAnatomyHarveyMustardComplex ProblemsMustard Seed
Book:Huxley's Autobiography and Selected Essays from Lay Sermons
Create image

“Mathematics may be compared to a mill of exquisite workmanship, which grinds you stuff of any degree of fineness; but, nevertheless, what you get out depends upon what you put in; and as the grandest mill in the world will not extract wheat-flour from peascods, so pages of formulae will not get a definite result out of loose data.”

WorldMayStuffWorkResultsDependsDegreesPagesMathematicsDataMathematicalNeverthelessDefiniteExquisiteGrindWheatMillsFlourWorkmanship
Author:Thomas Huxley
Create image

“There is no alleviation for the sufferings of mankind except veracity of thought and of action, and the resolute facing of the world as it is when the garment of make-believe by which pious hands have hidden its uglier features is stripped off.”

WorldBelieveHandsActionSufferingMankindIntegrityFeaturesGarmentsPiousMake BelieveResoluteVeracity
Book:Aphorisms and Reflections from the Works of Thomas Henry Huxley
Create image

“The science, the art, the jurisprudence, the chief political and social theories, of the modern world have grown out of Greece and Rome-not by favour of, but in the teeth of, the fundamental teachings of early Christianity, to which science, art, and any serious occupation with the things of this world were alike despicable.”

WorldArtPoliticalSocialChristianityTeachingModernThis WorldSeriousTheoryFundamentalsTeethChiefsOccupationRomeFavourScience And ReligionGreeceModern WorldDespicableJurisprudenceSocial TheoryGreece And Rome
Book:Collected essays
Create image